Does this novel accurately reflect events in history??? Yes. Doing a mental recap of all the books I have read in my life, I can pick no other novel that reflects certain events in history better than this one. As I have stated in a few other blogs, this novel was written as propaganda during World War II to help inspire people in conquered countries and towns across Western Europe to fight back. Looking back in history, this novel accurately reflected events that took place as the Nazi's invaded Norway during World War II. This novel represents the Norwegian resistance that actually took place during the war.
As for how well Steinbeck understands certain relationships, I believe that he got them pretty spot on. One of the most noticeable kind of relationships I noticed during this novel was the relationship between a soldier and his commanding officer. Growing up, I was told that in the army they break you down so that they can build you up again as not a man or woman, but a soldier. This is obviously true, because there are so many points in this novel in which Colonel Lanser refers to a member of his army as not even being a man anymore. "You're not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and, Lieutenant, your life isn't of much importance. (Steinbeck 99). Hearing this, we can see how life really is in the army. In the end, you are just taking orders, and you had better respect those orders.
The other main relationship that I noticed Steinbeck trying to show us was the relationship between a political official and his people. The readers can see that the author strongly believes that politicians should be dedicated to the people they serve, and represent them to the very best of their ability. "When the town makes up its mind what it wants to do, I'll probably do that." (Steinbeck 19). The Mayor believes that his decisions can only be what the people want, or else everything would fall apart. There is obviously a lot of respect on either side of this relationship. The people respect the Mayor and his final decisions, but the Mayor respects his people enough to take their thoughts into consideration. It really seems that Steinbeck described these relationships well. He was able to accurately capture the time period during the war and incorporate it into his novel.
Steinbeck, John. The Moon Is Down. New York: Penguin Classics, 1942. Print.
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